Zeovit - System

[Jstn]

Hi Justin,

You can increase your flow to 16oz in 6 seconds. Could you please increase your start to .6ml per day. Lets see where that gets us.

James

Ok, been three days at 16 oz in 6 second along with start at 0.3 ml 2x per day.

My Nitrates are at 10ppm and PO4 at 0.26 ppm, same as before, Im sure the GFO is exhausted after a week and I am so I am sure it's only running on zeovit.

My stones are 7 weeks old, ten days ago upped it it 100 mL (~350 mL of stones) do you think the next step is swap out 50% of the stones (which would include the new 100 mL since obviously they are on the top of the reactor.

 

[CUNAReefer]

Ok, been three days at 16 oz in 6 second along with start at 0.3 ml 2x per day.

My Nitrates are at 10ppm and PO4 at 0.26 ppm, same as before, Im sure the GFO is exhausted after a week and I am so I am sure it's only running on zeovit.

My stones are 7 weeks old, ten days ago upped it it 100 mL (~350 mL of stones) do you think the next step is swap out 50% of the stones (which would include the new 100 mL since obviously they are on the top of the reactor.

Hey Justin,

Happy 4th!

Since you just added the 100ml of the new stones, I wouldn't consider your stones to be 7 weeks old. Once we see that the amount of zeo media in your reactor is sufficient to handle your bioload, you will replace only 100ml of media every six weeks. Then you will go through the normal 14 dosing of the zeobac as you normally would when changing the stones. Did you ever increase your zeostart3 dosing? If you did increase your start3 dosing as I suggested and you still did not see a decrease in your trates and phates, then lets increase your dosing by another .1ml daily.

quick edit: if you never added the zeobac for the 14 days to seed the new media, please start now.

Warmest Regards,
James

 

[Jstn]

Hey Justin,

Happy 4th!

Since you just added the 100ml of the new stones, I wouldn't consider your stones to be 7 weeks old. Once we see that the amount of zeo media in your reactor is sufficient to handle your bioload, you will replace only 100ml of media every six weeks. Then you will go through the normal 14 dosing of the zeobac as you normally would when changing the stones. Did you ever increase your zeostart3 dosing? If you did increase your start3 dosing as I suggested and you still did not see a decrease in your trates and phates, then lets increase your dosing by another .1ml daily.

quick edit: if you never added the zeobac for the 14 days to seed the new media, please start now.

Warmest Regards,
James

Happy 4th to you also sir.

I have dosed two drops of bak for the last 10 days into the reactor with it off, my start went from 0.5 to 0.6, so now I am going to move it up to 0.7ml. What you think another three days to see if anything changed then report back?

 

[Jstn]

Strangely with my high nutrients, I have no algae or cyano on the rocks or glass.

 

[CUNAReefer]

Strangely with my high nutrients, I have no algae or cyano on the rocks or glass.

Hmmm... Lets not increase the start anymore. Sorry if I am asking some repetitive questions here.

What type of skimmer are you using and are you skimming wet or dry?
Do you see a thin film of algae on your tank every three or four days?
What kits are you using for testing? When you test, are you using clean containers to collect your water sample? If you are using a hanna phosphate checker, do you use the 3 minute count down?
What do you feed your fish and how much?
If you feed frozen food, do you rinse before adding to your tank?

And MOST importantly, how are your corals looking?

James

 

[Jstn]

I have a Reef Octopus NWB-110 skim slightly on the wet side, 40 gallons of water total. I rarely see film on the glass, maybe once a week it needs cleaning, all my test kits are saliferts, Hanna 713 for PO4, I do hold the button and engage the countdown. I feed my 4 fish pellets 1-2x per day, I feed the limited lps once a week. I do rinse frozen, but I also use a tiny piece of rods food twice a week. My Hammers and Torches look great, my one acan is starting to bounce back a little, the other is still dying (I dont think its zeovit related). My sps are brown, I cant tell if the STN on my GARF stopped or is creeping at a slow pace, the other sps are brown, but during sunset (blue leds) I am starting to see a hint of color, were before they just looked brown all the time. My zoa are looking great and happy.

 

[CUNAReefer]

I have a Reef Octopus NWB-110 skim slightly on the wet side, 40 gallons of water total. I rarely see film on the glass, maybe once a week it needs cleaning, all my test kits are saliferts, Hanna 713 for PO4, I do hold the button and engage the countdown. I feed my 4 fish pellets 1-2x per day, I feed the limited lps once a week. I do rinse frozen, but I also use a tiny piece of rods food twice a week. My Hammers and Torches look great, my one acan is starting to bounce back a little, the other is still dying (I dont think its zeovit related). My sps are brown, I cant tell if the STN on my GARF stopped or is creeping at a slow pace, the other sps are brown, but during sunset (blue leds) I am starting to see a hint of color, were before they just looked brown all the time. My zoa are looking great and happy.

If your starting to see improvements in your corals, I would keep going down the path you are on. Sounds like things are starting to stabilize. The hint of color your seeing is a good sign.

 

[Jstn]

I think I am going to attempt a 50% water change, I just need some HCl from the lab to adjust my Alk to 8.0 (reef crystals). This should cut my parameters in half, do you think this is a wise idea or is this going to drop my parameters too fast?

Thanks man, I agree its a good sign to see a bit of color for once.

 

[chercm]

Anyone using kZ revolution s skimmer ?

 

[CUNAReefer]

I think I am going to attempt a 50% water change, I just need some HCl from the lab to adjust my Alk to 8.0 (reef crystals). This should cut my parameters in half, do you think this is a wise idea or is this going to drop my parameters too fast?

Thanks man, I agree its a good sign to see a bit of color for once.

Hi Justin,

I cannot say I am a fan of RC salt. If you do want to perform that large of a water change, I suggest breaking it up into two water changes at least a day apart. Personally, I have done three 35 gallon water changes in one week. My net water volume is 150 gallons. Also, RC has a high alk. Have you ever given any thought to switching salts? I use a 50/50 mix of neomarine and Seachem. I did use neomarine exclusively until they raised the price. I do get a little cloudiness with the seachem salt, but overall, I am happy.

James

 

[ryanrid]

Anyone using kZ revolution s skimmer ?

yes first gen, once tuned correctly is great.

 

[dkeller_nc]

I think I am going to attempt a 50% water change, I just need some HCl from the lab to adjust my Alk to 8.0 (reef crystals). This should cut my parameters in half, do you think this is a wise idea or is this going to drop my parameters too fast?

Thanks man, I agree its a good sign to see a bit of color for once.

I've been reading through this thread over the last day and a half. It's quite interesting, though some of the explanations of how molecular sieves work seems a bit "off" to me.

I won't comment on the use of the Zeo system in your tank, as I don't use it myself. However, as someone that's kept reef tanks for many years, I would strongly suggest that you do not change 50% of your system volume at once.

Seawater is very, very complex. What we test for as reefers is a very small fraction of that complexity. When you do a water change of over 20% at one time, there is at least the potential of instantly changing some of this chemical complexity by a large amount, and almost all of the animals we keep in tropical reef tanks depend on stability.

If you are trying to rapidly bring a parameter down or up (like phosphate, nitrate, calcium, alkalinity, etc...), you are far better off doing 20% changes several times over the course of a couple of days rather than 50% or greater all at once.

Think about it like you would fish or coral acclimation after receiving a shipment - there's good reason that the universal advice is drip acclimation rather than equalizing the temperature and simply placing the animals in your tank.

 

[Jstn]

Hi Justin,

I cannot say I am a fan of RC salt. If you do want to perform that large of a water change, I suggest breaking it up into two water changes at least a day apart. Personally, I have done three 35 gallon water changes in one week. My net water volume is 150 gallons. Also, RC has a high alk. Have you ever given any thought to switching salts? I use a 50/50 mix of neomarine and Seachem. I did use neomarine exclusively until they raised the price. I do get a little cloudiness with the seachem salt, but overall, I am happy.

James

Yeah I know its not the best, but I have 50 gallons of it left to use. So you suggest perhaps 2x10 gallon changes? I do plan on switching salts, I can lower the alk to 8.0 with a few mL of HCl acid to make sure its more on par with the current levels. I was looking at DDh20 and neomarine to try next.

 

[Jstn]

I've been reading through this thread over the last day and a half. It's quite interesting, though some of the explanations of how molecular sieves work seems a bit "off" to me.

I won't comment on the use of the Zeo system in your tank, as I don't use it myself. However, as someone that's kept reef tanks for many years, I would strongly suggest that you do not change 50% of your system volume at once.

Seawater is very, very complex. What we test for as reefers is a very small fraction of that complexity. When you do a water change of over 20% at one time, there is at least the potential of instantly changing some of this chemical complexity by a large amount, and almost all of the animals we keep in tropical reef tanks depend on stability.

If you are trying to rapidly bring a parameter down or up (like phosphate, nitrate, calcium, alkalinity, etc...), you are far better off doing 20% changes several times over the course of a couple of days rather than 50% or greater all at once.

Think about it like you would fish or coral acclimation after receiving a shipment - there's good reason that the universal advice is drip acclimation rather than equalizing the temperature and simply placing the animals in your tank.

Molecular sieves? Where was that mentioned, they just have pores the correct size to "trap molecules" for example 3A or 4A (angstrom) can pull water out of organic solvents.

I may do two ten gallon changes, once I get the alk of the new water down to 8.0.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Molecular sieves? Where was that mentioned, they just have pores the correct size to "trap molecules" for example 3A or 4A (angstrom) can pull water out of organic solvents.

I may do two ten gallon changes, once I get the alk of the new water down to 8.0.

Zeolites are molecular sieves.

 

[Jstn]

True, my brain is hard wired to think of lab mole sieves, I forgot zeolites are indeed sieves.

James,

Today my tank looked the best in weeks, clear water, coral look their best. Anecdotal: I removed the gfo yesterday.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Well, depending on what lab/industrial molecular sieves one is referring to, they might actually be zeolites. All zeolites are molecular sieves, though not all molecular sieves are zeolites.

Despite what the company claims, I strongly suspect that the mode of action for the K-Z zeolite is largely physical sequestration of PO4 in the molecular sieve mode of action instead of strict removal of PO4 by bacterial growth/skimming.

There are several reasons that lead me to this conclusion - if the mode of action was just bacterial growth/removal by skimming, it wouldn't be necessary to have a zeo reactor nor any zeolite in the system at all because any reef tank with a substantial quantity of LR has an enormous surface area for the growth of biofilms/bacteria that far exceed the surface area in a few hundred mls of zeolite. Moreover, mature biofilms on surfaces constantly shed into the water, so stirring a zeolite in a reactor isn't going to substantially change the amount of bacteria in the water available for skimming out.

Finally, if the primary mode of action of the zeolite was simply growth of bacteria, then it would not be necessary to replace the media.

However, if the zeolite is a correctly sized molecular sieve, than it will selectively absorb phosphate from the water, even in a seawater system with abundant competing ions. Under such circumstances, having to stir the zeolite on a frequent basis and having to replace it at some regular interval makes perfect sense. One would have to break up the bacterial biofilm on the surface of the zeolite on a frequent basis to ensure continued diffusion of the phosphate into the zeolite, and eventually the zeolite medium would become exhausted - just as it does in industrial processes that use molecular sieves as purification.

 

[Jstn]

Hi Justin,

I cannot say I am a fan of RC salt. If you do want to perform that large of a water change, I suggest breaking it up into two water changes at least a day apart. Personally, I have done three 35 gallon water changes in one week. My net water volume is 150 gallons. Also, RC has a high alk. Have you ever given any thought to switching salts? I use a 50/50 mix of neomarine and Seachem. I did use neomarine exclusively until they raised the price. I do get a little cloudiness with the seachem salt, but overall, I am happy.

James

I did a 12 gal water change that I matched the alk at 8.0 dKh, next day I did a PO4 test, I am at 0.24, still on the high side, but it seems to be going in the right direction especially since is no GFO in my systmem.

 

[CUNAReefer]

Well, depending on what lab/industrial molecular sieves one is referring to, they might actually be zeolites. All zeolites are molecular sieves, though not all molecular sieves are zeolites.

Despite what the company claims, I strongly suspect that the mode of action for the K-Z zeolite is largely physical sequestration of PO4 in the molecular sieve mode of action instead of strict removal of PO4 by bacterial growth/skimming.

There are several reasons that lead me to this conclusion - if the mode of action was just bacterial growth/removal by skimming, it wouldn't be necessary to have a zeo reactor nor any zeolite in the system at all because any reef tank with a substantial quantity of LR has an enormous surface area for the growth of biofilms/bacteria that far exceed the surface area in a few hundred mls of zeolite. Moreover, mature biofilms on surfaces constantly shed into the water, so stirring a zeolite in a reactor isn't going to substantially change the amount of bacteria in the water available for skimming out.

Finally, if the primary mode of action of the zeolite was simply growth of bacteria, then it would not be necessary to replace the media.

However, if the zeolite is a correctly sized molecular sieve, than it will selectively absorb phosphate from the water, even in a seawater system with abundant competing ions. Under such circumstances, having to stir the zeolite on a frequent basis and having to replace it at some regular interval makes perfect sense. One would have to break up the bacterial biofilm on the surface of the zeolite on a frequent basis to ensure continued diffusion of the phosphate into the zeolite, and eventually the zeolite medium would become exhausted - just as it does in industrial processes that use molecular sieves as purification.

Hi DKeller,

Hope all is well! I am going to have to do a little more research on your post. Not to disagree, just to ensure I provide the correct information. To the best of my knowledge, the media absorbs ammonium, organic compounds and other monovalent cations. The media has not been documented to absorb phosphate. I'll post some feedback tomorrow.

James

I did a 12 gal water change that I matched the alk at 8.0 dKh, next day I did a PO4 test, I am at 0.24, still on the high side, but it seems to be going in the right direction especially since is no GFO in my systmem.

Hey Justin, I've been getting on a couple calls with some of the folks that have questions on the zeo process. If you ever would like to schedule a call, you are welcome to bounce some ideas off of me.

Warmest Regards,
James

 

[dkeller_nc]

Hi DKeller,

Hope all is well! I am going to have to do a little more research on your post. Not to disagree, just to ensure I provide the correct information. To the best of my knowledge, the media absorbs ammonium, organic compounds and other monovalent cations. The media has not been documented to absorb phosphate. I'll post some feedback tomorrow.

I do wonder if this kind of work has been done in a laboratory. While expensive (one would definitely need an ion chromatograph at the very least), the experiment itself would be fairly straightforward - make up sterile seawater with varying levels of orthophosphate, equilibrate those solutions with sterile zeolite, and measure the remaining concentration in solution.

I'm skeptical about the permanent sequestration of nitrogenous compounds by zeolite simply because in a non-sterile system, it would be nearly impossible to measure those compound's adsorption/absorption by the zeolite separate from biological nitrification/denitrification. And it isn't possible for this to happen by ion exchange - there are far too many competing ions in seawater.

But, removal of nitrogenous compounds by zeolite in a seawater system isn't impossible, it could work by molecular size exclusion. Under those circumstances, however, one would think that such adsorption would be very specific to the charge/size ratio of the ammonium ion - it wouldn't make sense that the zeolite could adsorb ammonium and complex organics (which are typically much, much larger in molecular weight and therefore molecular size).

There's another aspect of this material that would lead me to believe that it was effective in molecular adsorption/binding of phosphate. Zeolites are, by definition, alumina-silicate minerals. Aluminum compounds are quite effective at permanently reacting with phosphates to form insoluble compounds at a pH greater than 7. As I understand it, this is the mode of action of Phosguard from Seachem.